Author's Note: So…

You guys remember that line Clint says in Captain America: Civil War?

"Really? I retire for like what, five minutes? And it all goes to shit."

That's kind of how I feel.

Really? I take a hiatus from writing for like what, five minutes? And it all goes to shit.

So COVID-19 is a thing.

…So we're all pretty much stuck indoors all day. (Sign) Whatever. I know you guys have been waiting for a while and now with most of you stuck inside, self-quarantining, or God forbid you actually are recovering from this thing or have someone close to you recovering from this thing, I want to bring a little joy and entertainment to your guys' lives.

So enjoy! :)

I'm sorry it took so long but I had more pressing matters, such as school. All my classes got converted to online classes which made things like ten times more difficult but it's all good now. I'm graduating from my local college with an Associates in Arts, but no longer is there a graduating ceremony, which sucks but at least I got to have my high school graduation ceremony three years ago so… It's fine.

Also, two years! It's been two years! It does not feel like two years have gone by since I first published this thing! (Special thanks to the reviewers who mentioned it, because I didn't realize it until it was pointed out to me.) And by the way, I have come up with the perfect ship name for Loki/Nebula: Nebuki! I have a joke about this later which is why I bring it up, but anyways…On to the chapter!

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Chapter Twenty: The Art of Illusion Casting

Bruce ran down the hallway. Several hallways actually to get back to the room where the others were. When he finally burst in, he was almost completely out of breath, but he managed the words, "Vision's alive."

"What, really?" Peter asked, a hint of hope in his voice.

Bruce nodded his head as he grabbed his now hurting side. God, he needed to work out and get into shape. Especially if a certain green asshole wasn't going to be fighting his battles anymore.

"It actually worked," Clint said, relieved. All Bruce could do was nod again as he tried to catch his stupid breath back. Peter happily looked to his friends, M.J. and Ned, and seemed about ready to hug the both of them. Laura squeezed Clint's hand and smiled at him. The rest of the people in the room, Pepper, Happy, Wong, Darcy, Luis, Christine, Scott's daughter Cassie, and Clint's children, had no direct connection to Vision. Sure, they had heard of him, he was an Avenger after all, but they weren't friends with him like Bruce and his fellow superheroes were. But that didn't stop the spread of the new joyful feeling. Like depression, giddiness was contagious.

Natasha got to her feet, a smile gracing her features for the first time since before St. Louis. "I-I can't believe it."

"Oh!" Bruce suddenly exclaimed, startling everyone in the room. "And that woman is here… You know," Bruce waved his arms around trying to articulate, "the woman who contacted us?"

Nat was the first one to get what he was trying to say. "Carol Danvers?" Bruce nodded once again. "What are we waiting for then? Let's go."

After a brief parting of ways with friends and family, Nat, Clint, and Peter hurried to the lab. Bruce was right on their heels. They ran across Rhodey, T'Challa, Shuri, and part of the Guardians, told them, and soon they were following them to the lab as well.

When their group of ten entered the lab, Wanda was still close to Vision's side, holding his hand, looking like she never wanted to let go. Thor, Valkyrie, and Jane sat a bit to the sidelines, not wanting to interrupt the happily reunited couple. And Tony was speaking with Carol Danvers. She was a sight for sure. Her flowing blonde hair and bright blue eyes gave her a look of innocence. Her red, blue, and gold uniform and constant glares gave her a look of authority. Though, Natasha, Clint, and Rhodey didn't pay much attention to the newcomer and instead went straight to the red android.

"I thought you were gone for good, man," Clint said with a smile.

Vision smiled as well and glanced between all of his friends. "Well, I am not human, so "gone for good" does not apply to me."

Nat grabbed his shoulder and said in a softer-than-usual tone, "Seriously though, we're glad you're back. It was like we were missing a vital part of the team."

Shuri and Peter both crowded the computers, looking over the various inputs of information. After a minute or so, Shuri nodded to herself. "Everything is working perfectly. Levels are excellent, systems are running smoothly. It's nothing short of a miracle."

T'Challa, who stood nearby, nodded in agreement but glanced at his sister and teasingly said, "I thought you preferred to believe in science over miracles."

Shuri thought for a moment before correcting herself. "It's a scientific miracle."

"Yeah," Peter said, "you can say that again."

Shuri opened her mouth, more than ready to say it again, if only to be a smart-aleck, but T'Challa interrupted her, "Don't actually say it again."

The Guardians, who were all there except for Nebula, Rocket, and Gamora, had stayed pretty quiet for a while but that soon changed. "I can say it again for the Princess if you forbid her from saying it herself," Drax volunteered. Quill rubbed his forehead in his usual way; part extreme exhaustion, part extreme embarrassment.

Vision's artificial gray eyes turned to Quill and his colorful team. "You must be the Guardians of the Galaxy."

"We are," Quill said, crossing his arms in front of his chest.

Vision nodded slowly. "Wanda has been explaining the events of the last few days to me. She says you have lent all of your hands in aiding our victory against Thanos. For this alone, you all have my thanks."

Quill raised his eyebrows up in surprise. Drax nodded, almost humbly. "I am Groot," Groot said in a happy tone.

Mantis giggled, "I like the red man too."

Wanda looked deeply at her boyfriend. Looked at his features, the glowing Infinity Stone stuck in the indent on his forehead, an indent created when Thanos yanked the stone out with no regard to the pain he was causing by doing so. Her relief, her grief, her love could be seen swirling around just by looking into her dark watery eyes. She was constantly wiping tears from them, constantly trying not to mess up the black eyeliner. "He does grow on a person, doesn't he?" she said in barely above a whisper.

"I hate to interrupt." The light, but commanding voice belonged to one Captain Marvel. She had walked more to the center of the room so she could gain everyone's attention. Mission accomplished.

"Right," Tony said, stepping over so he stood beside her. "Guys, this is Captain Carol Danvers. Captain this is everyone. Formal introductions at this point will take somewhere around forty-five minutes because of the sheer number of people, so we'll just skip over that bit for now."

Carol nodded briskly and said, "Your boss was just filling me in on what has happened since I messaged you."

"Boss?" Quill questioned, almost offended.

At that very second, Rocket, Okoye, and M'Baku walked in. Having apparently heard Quill's annoyance, Rocket snapped, "Quill, deal with your insecurities later." The crabby raccoon leaned against a wall with his arms crossed. He looked at Carol, he looked at Vision, and then muttered, "Danvers and the android?" They both nodded. Vision's expression was that of fascination at seeing the raccoon for the first time but Carol's expression was that of impatience. Rocket nodded to himself. "Cool. What were you gonna say before I interrupted?"

Carol got right back down to business. "Where do you think Thanos would be going?" she asked Tony.

"Not sure," Tony answered honestly. "The two painted sisters might know, being his kids and everything."

"Adopted kids," Quill corrected.

The female Captain nodded. "Where are they? The sooner I can speak with them, the sooner I can leave."

"Leave?" Peter said in shock. "But you just got here."

It was a bit odd that she should want to leave after promising to help them. Carol turned to Peter, eyed him for a few seconds, and said, "You seem a little young to be part of this fight."

The boy shrugged. "I'm Peter Parker."

For the first time since her arrival, Carol smiled. "Hey there, Peter Parker. You didn't really answer my question did you?" Before Peter could potentially answer, Carol continued talking. "But to answer yours, I'd leave to hunt down Thanos."

"Okay," Valkyrie muttered, "and what's your plan once you hunt him down?"

"I'll kill him."

Carol's strong confidence combined with simple but to the point words, were enough to make Valkyrie sit up straight in her chair and eye the other woman with a sort of respect. "Wow," she laughed. "Love your brashness." Carol smiled again. Why did Bruce have the feeling that these two just became best friends for life?

"Um, maybe we can discuss this later?" Natasha said, stepping closer to Tony and Carol. "At 6 o'clock tomorrow morning to be exact? I think it would be best if we had a few more hours before we go full throttle into another plan."

Carol paused to look around at the group, to really look at them. She nodded and her expression was suddenly full of sympathy. "You all do seem tired."

"Yeah," Nat muttered, "and it doesn't help that moral is still pretty low…despite recent resurrections." Bruce half smiled at her comment about Vision because it was true. They had basically resurrected him. But yeah. Moral was still low in-spite of their scientific miracle that was bringing Vision, bringing a friend, back to life.

"Stark told me about your friend," Carol said.

"Not just a friend," Thor told her, his expression a mixture of seriousness and sorrow. "My brother."

Carol's sympathetic look increased. "I'm sorry. But if I were to go now, then I could save him as well as rid the universe of Thanos."

Thor gazed at her intensely. "What makes you think you can kill him?"

Carol didn't say a word, she just flickered a glimpse of a smirk. She took a few steps away from the group, curled her right hand into a fist, and fired some sort yellow light beam at the silver wall. When the beam hit the wall, a small concentrated explosion happened. Basically everyone in the room jumped. After the smoke started to settle, they all could see that there was now a hole in the wall. Carol turned back to the group, the yellow light was still glowing around her hand. She then confidently said, "That's what makes me think I can kill him."

Bruce had seen a lot of things in his life. A lot of powerful people who had crazy, impressive abilities. Carol Danvers', whatever you wanted to call it, were crazy and impressive but so far nothing he hadn't seen before. What was shocking was the way Carol just decided to show-off her powers.

It was quiet for a while, but the silence was broken by Valkyrie's laugher. She huffed out, "I like this chick." Carol smiled again. Oh, yeah. Best friends for life.

Tony shook his head and muttered, "That's…well, powerful stuff you got there."

Peter nodded his head up and down excitedly like a bobble head. "Yeah! How did-how'd you-?"

"The Tessaract," Carol answered. "Or Space Stone. It gave me my powers."

"You got your powers from an Infinity Stone?" Vision asked. Carol nodded. Vision glanced to Wanda. "Your strength must be almost unmatchable then. Something you and Wanda have in common."

Carol looked curiously at Wanda, but her attention was quickly drawl to Drax who said, "They are awesome weapons of destruction. Maybe she can defeat Thanos singlehandedly."

"We couldn't defeat Thanos," Quill said skeptically. "And we are like the ultimate roster of powerhouses. No offense, but one person isn't going to be able to stop him."

"Yes," Vision said, slowly getting to his feet. Wanda kept her hands wrapped around his left arm to steady him. "I believe that working as a team will result in our successful victory much faster than individually. Divided we fall, but united…we stand tall."

T'Challa stepped up to Carol. "I understand that when it comes to up there," he pointed upwards as if to reference space, "you are probably more of an expert then we are. However, this is our fight too."

Carol crossed her arms and nodded. "Fair enough. You all rest. I'll talk with Thanos's adopted daughters and we'll leave in the morning."

"Just like that?" Jane asked from the sidelines.

"Yeah," Carol said. "Just like that."

Jane's eyebrows knotted together in confusion. "You're just going to go guns blazing? I thought the reason you all stayed here was to rest and plan accordingly, not to go in all rash again. How do we know it won't turn out the way it did before?"

"Because before you didn't have me," Carol stated.

There was a bit of arrogance in her tone but oddly she didn't appear to be completely conceited about her abilities. Regardless, Rhodey picked up on her tone and wasn't having any of it. "Hey, new girl? Everyone here is about that superhero life. We don't need a newbie taking point. And if you don't mind me asking, where the hell have you been this whole time?"

Carol tilted her head to the side and squinted her eyes at him. "The universe is a big place with plenty of high level threats. Earth is lucky to have you guys. Everyone else has to put their faith in Guardians or Starjammers or me. I've been trying to prevent something like this from happening in the first place." Rhodey quietly nodded at her explanation, looking like he might have regretted questioning her.

"Um," Quill started, looking strangely excited, "Sorry, did you say Starjammers?"

Carol briefly nodded. "I did."

"Wait, so…they're real?"

"Yes."

Quill's eyes widened to the size of saucers. "I thought they were a myth. A space legend."

"No, they are very real," Carol mused. "I was a member for a brief time."

"You were a Starjammer?" Quill asked, suddenly sounding dumbfounded.

Tony rubbed his forehead. "Hey, ah, Quill? Can we get back on course?"

"Yeah, yeah, yeah, just one thing." Quill faced Carol straight on and asked, "Hepizbah Amequeline, leader of the Starjammers, is she really as powerful as the stories say?"

Carol glanced at the floor and smiled in some sort of fond remembrance. She nodded. "Practically a Goddess."

While Quill appeared to be having a little fanboy moment and Bruce had no freaking clue who the hell these "Starjammers" were, none of that mattered anymore. Dr. Strange came walking into the lab, his cloak flowing behind him in his usual mysterious way. Bruce could feel the air tighten up as the man entered, or maybe he could just feel Tony's not so hidden heated glare. Strange still seemed to be as guilt ridden as ever, maybe that's why the air changed upon his entrance.

"Might I make a suggestion?" the doctor asked no one in particular. No one answered him but no one disagreed either, so he continued on, looking directly at Carol. "Rest is important because you will not be able to stop Thanos on your own. You'll need our help." Strange's tone, his no nonsense, stern tone was both irritating and entrancing. So much so, that even Carol seemed to be taken away with him and slightly annoyed with him. "That being said," the doctor continued, "there are certain steps we can start taking now before we make our plan."

Strange didn't specifically say what these steps were, but he didn't have to. Vision spoke up, "The Princess can continue to take the stone out of my head. We will certainly need it if we are going through with creating our own Gauntlet."

Valkyrie nodded. "Yeah, and we can check in on Eitri. Get the stupid piece of metal."

Of course, this giant dwarf that Thor knew. He was currently making their human sized Gauntlet at this very moment. They had gotten in contact with him, or rather, Thor had gotten in contact with him soon after the search party had left for the Soul World. And speaking of metal… "We can fix the Hulk Buster suit," Bruce said. "So this time I can actually be a part of the fight."

"We'll see how Steve's doing," Natasha said.

"We can start to think about where a safe place for our loved ones would be," Clint said. "Since Thanos and Co. can breach Wakanda's defenses, we need to find a different place."

"Also," M'Baku started, "we can clean up this mess. Apparently, everyone likes to trash Wakanda."

"Can it, fur ball," Rocket snapped.

Tony let out a deep breath and rubbed his forehead. "Okay. We can do that. All of it. Our resident Asgardians can see the dwarf. Pete, Rhodey, Tasha, and Clint can go back and rest." All four looked like they were about to protest but Tony quickly continued on, "And you guys can figure out where a new safe spot would be. Okay?"

Rhodey glanced at Natasha and Clint, who both nodded half-heartedly, and then answered for the group of four, "Okay."

Tony nodded and went on. "Shuri can get the stone outta Vision's head. Wanda let me know when it's out. Bruce and I can work on the suit. Someone go and check on Steve. Everyone else can help fix the wall."

"Not just the wall," M'Baku said. "The raccoon and I were in the middle of picking up a room he left in shambles."

Rocket glared at the man. "Tattle tale…Well, Loki wrecked a room first so…"

Wanda suddenly gasped, "Oh! I never got rid of all those chairs and daggers." Vision gave her a questioning look. She explained, "I was learning how to conjure objects but I never made them disappear."

Mantis timidly raised her hand to ask a question. "Did anyone ever fix that large hole in the meeting room? Where Thane and Super Giant tried to kill us with that explosion?"

Oh, yeah…that was a thing that happened, wasn't it? Tony had this funny look on his face as he turned to T'Challa. "My God, I am so sorry. You opened your kingdom to us and all we have done is trash the place."

T'Challa shook his head and his hands, shrugging it off. "It is quite alright. Some people were sent to assess the damage after the explosion but help is always appreciated."

With that it was silently agreed what they had to do and they split up to do what needed to be done. Nat, Clint, and Rhodey all left to go back to where Pepper and the rest of the group was, to continue their resting and to figure out a new safe place. T'Challa messaged some more people to come into the lab to work on fixing the hole Carol had made and he was going to stay in the lab to supervise. Bruce waited for Tony, who was helping Wanda lead Vision back to the silver metal table where Shuri was going to safely remove the stone from Vision's head. Dr. Strange quietly slipped out of the room without saying a word.

"I'll go and see Thanos's adopted daughters," Carol told the rest of the group. "See if they know where he would go."

"I think you should stay," M'Baku said, leaning against his staff. "You know the old saying, blow up a wall, stick around to fix it."

"You are not remotely funny," Okoye told him. M'Baku raised an eyebrow up at her in a, oh really?, manner. Okoye gave him a, yes, really, look right back.

Thor suddenly stood up and walked up to Carol. They stared at each other for a minute before Thor reached his arm out. He was calling his axe to him and the deadly weapon came flying to him from where it had sat on the other side of the room. He caught it easily. Carol didn't even flinch when the broad axe flew by her, swishing her hair with the wind it picked up. What the hell was that, some sort of test? To see if Carol was all bark and no bite? If that was the case, she passed with flying colors. Thor mused, "I like this one." Carol smiled a tight smile. Thor nodded to himself and walked past her. "Valkyrie, I'll meet you outside. Whenever you're ready, we'll go talk to Eitri."

"Yeah," Valkyrie said, standing up. "I'll be there in a second." She gave Carol the once over and said, "I didn't recognize your uniform before…it's the design of the Kree uniform."

"Kree?" Rocket muttered. "Like that Super Giant bitch?"

Carol nodded and addressed Valkyrie. "The Kree took me from my home, made me forget my life here, filled my head with their overbearing ideas on how life should be ruled. I remembered who I was and vowed to stop them and the Accusers from causing any more pain on the Skrulls and whoever else they decided to target."

"Big help you were," Rocket muttered again. "Guess you were busy when Ronan tried to mow down Xander. And what about Thanos? Did he slip your keen senses?"

"Don't pay any attention to him," Quill told Carol. "He always acts like an ass when he's depressed."

Carol eyed Quill and his flowing red jacket. "I heard him," she motioned to Vision, "address you as the Guardians of the Galaxy. I've heard so much about you and how you defeated Ronan. Did you really challenge him to a dance off?"

Quill rubbed the back of his neck almost like he was embarrassed. "Well, uh-"

"Yes, he did," Drax told her. Quill glared at him, to which Drax shrugged. "What? Miss Marvel asked a question, so I answered her."

"It's Captain Marvel," Carol corrected.

Drax squinted his eyes in confusion. "What did I say?"

Quill sighed, "Never mind. Drax, I need you, Mantis, Rocket and Groot to go help fix the mess Rocket apparently made." Rocket sneered at him, but Drax nodded that he would. "I'll check in with Sam and Barnes and see how Captain Rogers is doing since no one else volunteered. See you guys later."

Before he could leave, Rocket called out in a snarky tone, "Anything to get outta of workin', huh Quill?"

Quill didn't answer, but he gave the raccoon a small smirk and turned to leave. And just as he did so he ran straight into Hope. "Oh! Hey there," Quill said a bit surprised.

"I just heard," Hope said. "Vision's alive and Captain Marvel is here." She glanced past Quill to see Carol and Vision.

"Yup," Quill said, "I don't get their names though. It's not like he's a vision to look at and she isn't marvelous." Hope gave him a funny look. So did Carol. In fact a lot of the people still left in the room were giving him a questioning look. Quill glanced at Hope, cleared his throat, and told her as well as the rest of the room, "I get overly comical in high stress situations. It's a personality flaw. Just ignore me."

Hope's expression melted into one of slight amusement. "Don't worry about it. Scott can be the same way."

"Hey, where is Lang?" Quill asked.

Hope shrugged her shoulders. "I've been looking for him, still no luck."

"Hope you find him." Quill paused for a moment before quickly adding, "And that wasn't a joke about your name."

"Thanks." Hope came further into the room as Quill and his Guardians left. The brunette seemed anxious to leave. Anxious to find Scott, maybe? Either way, she stayed for a minute or two, without really saying a word to anyone and then she left to continue looking for her boyfriend.

Carol let out a breath and said, "I guess I'll go now."

"Yeah, me too," Valkyrie said. "Can't let his majesty wait on me forever."

"What was your name again?" Carol asked her as they both headed to the door.

"Brunnhilde, but you can call me Valkyrie." With that, the two women left together.

Jane was still standing to the sidelines as she eyed Shuri who was scanning Vision, who was now laying on the metal table. "You look like you could use some help," she said to Shuri, "and I hate feeling useless."

Shuri smiled and nodded. "By all means, Dr. Foster."

Jane rolled up her sleeves and walked up to the table. She grabbed one of the computers attached to the table and brought it closer to her. Her eyes scanned the screen for a moment before saying, "Oh, you can call me Jane."

Wanda stood by Vision's side and with the android being worked on by Shuri and Jane, Tony finally figured it was time to leave and work on the Hulk Buster suit. He walked towards Bruce and opened his mouth to say something but he was interrupted by Peter Parker. Tony's young protégé was still in the lab. "Mr. Stark?"

Tony turned to him, a little surprised that he was still here. "Yeah, kid?"

"Can I help you and Dr. Banner with the suit?" Peter asked quietly.

Tony sputtered, "W-well…um, sure. Why, why not? Come on, kid."

With everyone off to do their own thing or rest, Bruce was off with Tony and Peter to finish fixing the damn stupid suit. It was right where he had left it. Peter walked up to the still open hatch on the back of the giant suit's head. He started fiddling around with the wires. Almost immediately the suit lite up for a brief moment before dying again. "Whoa, what'd you do?" Tony asked stepping closer to the teen.

"When my Mac crashes I just try crossing and uncrossing some of the wires. You'd be surprised how often that works."

Bruce slipped his glasses on and focused on a computer screen that had diagnostics scrolling all over it. "Probably won't work with this thing, unless Tony wired it the same way Apple wired a Macintosh." Bruce put the screen down and opened up a panel in the back. He ran his fingers along the inside, trying to feel for a switch that should be there. When he finally found it and flipped it, he went to take his hand from the suit, but accidently touched one of the exposed wires from the internal circuit board. The second he did it shocked him. It was a shock that couldn't seriously injure but it seriously hurt. "Son of a bitch!" he cursed, quickly pulling his hand back, examining it for any burns. There weren't any. Tony and Peter both jumped at his little outburst. But Tony also sternly looked at him, glanced to Peter, and then back to him. At first Bruce didn't understand why but then it occurred to him that the kid was a kid and he had cursed so… "Sorry," he quickly said to Peter.

Peter looked a bit confused too but then it must have occurred to him too. He shrugged it off. "It's fine. I go to high school. Lots of worse language said there than that."

Tony's stern look dropped. "Fair enough, but I don't want you picking up any bad habits from us." He glanced to Bruce and said, "Aunt May would kill us for that. She's a force to be reckoned with…" Bruce nodded and focused back on the suit. Not two minutes later did Tony start to say, "We didn't talk much. Too busy with reviving Vision and dealing with my cluttered thoughts. But, um, how are you?" Bruce almost wanted to roll his eyes. Not because of Tony's question but because there was Tony once again being overly concerned when he didn't have to be. "You okay?"

"Yeah," Bruce muttered. He wasn't fooling himself, let alone Tony.

"Really?" Bruce didn't answer. "Well," Tony sighed, "the reason I ask is, I was pretending to be okay when I wasn't and holding all those pent up emotions is bad for your health, you know?"

He wasn't going to drop this. Of course he wouldn't. Bruce took off his glasses and rubbed his tired eyes. "Uh, if you're talking about how am I after being kidnapped, I am okay. It was a bit scary and…weird. I don't really remember much until I woke up in a cold cell. Alone. Then suddenly I was led out and I saw the others. Then before you knew it, we were suspended around the Arch. And then…now we're here, trying to fix this freaking hunk of metal so I can actually be useful." He didn't hide the agitation in his tone. Agitation that he had been left behind because he couldn't turn into a green rage monster. Agitation that he hadn't been there to help his team fight the real monster and stop him from stealing fifteen souls. Agitation that a friend of his was now with Thanos and there was nothing he could do about it. Tony picked up on this agitation right away.

"Bruce-"

But he was done. He was so done. "What?" he snapped. He felt Tony and Peter's gazes fall on him, they both were probably looking for any hint of green. There wasn't any, Bruce already knew that. "I'm fine Tony. No need for your guilt right now."

"You were gonna Hulk out on Clint." Of all the things he had expected Tony to say, that wasn't it. "I know that the guy got under your collar and that's fine, I just want to know what's going on between you and the green guy 'cause if Clint made you mad, Thanos sure should've."

Overly guilty and perceptive as all get out. That really should be Tony's tagline.

Bruce glanced at his hands and slowly tried to explain. "I…I think he's afraid of Thanos." Tony tilted his head to the side in mild confusion. "Hulk," Bruce clarified, "I think the stupid green asshole is afraid of Thanos. And the thing is, for the first time in years I feel like I don't have control of this thing… It's like the beginning all over again. I don't know when he's going to come out, if at all, and I don't know if I'll be able to come back if he does. It's a nightmare."

Tony was silent for a second before telling him, "Then you got to figure it out."

Bruce halfheartedly agreed. "Yeah."

"No, I mean right now."

Bruce did a double take. "What?"

Tony was already walking around the suit. He reached out for Bruce, took him by the shoulders, and started leading him away. "You go somewhere," he told him, "Preferably an unpopulated somewhere, meditate, bang on some bongo drums, get in touch with your other half, and solve your guys' problem. And hey, maybe you just gotta give the Jolly Green Giant a bit of reassurance and tell him that we're all afraid of Thanos. Might make him feel like he can come on out again."

Bruce halted himself and Tony. He just stared at his friend in disbelief. "Tony, this is not something that can be fixed in hours."

Tony smirked a little. "Never say never. Don't worry about the suit, me and the kid will finish it. Now go." Bruce didn't know. He needed to figure out their problem and he had just been delaying the inevitable but… What if he couldn't figure this out? What if Hulk never was going to come out again? Or what if the Hulk came out and he was stuck like that forever? No more Bruce Banner. No more him. Oh, the joys of having two separate minds sharing one body. He looked to Tony who said a more commanding, "Go." Bruce shook his head to himself and then nodded.

Fine. He would go and try to figure this out. He did have seven PhDs after all, maybe it won't be too difficult. With that, he reluctantly left Tony and Peter to continue with the suit so he could go somewhere and have a nice long talk with the other guy.

…

Nebula had wanted to leave.

Had planned to leave on her own when it became crystal clear that the group of heroes were not going to be leaving for several hours.

It was unacceptable.

Completely and utterly unacceptable.

And she couldn't help but think if it had actually been Stark that had gone with Thanos that everyone would have jumped up right then and there and gone to rescue him. After having so much time on her hands to rethink about it, she supposed that it wasn't really fair of her to believe that the others would go after Stark and not Loki. It was just in her nature to expect the worse in everyone. Even these people who had never done anything to her.

Well, they were annoying, sometimes a bit too self-righteous for their own good, and of course there was Barton… The cruel bastard who had the gall to say that Loki deserved whatever pain Thanos had planned for him if he failed to take over New York. When the archer had said that to Loki, she had to restrain herself from taking one of his own arrows and lodging it in his eye socket.

But she hadn't. Probably was a good thing. Murder in front of so many people would only result in her being put back in a prison. If she really wanted to kill Barton she would just poison his food or something a bit stealthier.

Anyways, back to the point, she had planned to leave as soon as they arrived back at Wakanda. She waited for the healers to come with their technology to heal her of her minor cuts because while her machinery automatically realigned her bones if they ever got broken and the metal grafted to her skin could easily be fixed up, her flesh did not just magically heal itself. Once she was healed she left, quickly going to the blue building where she and Loki had gone to visit the Asgardian refugees. The place had enough supplies to take care of the Asgardians, surely there would be enough for her as well. And there had been. So she took her stolen supplies to the abandoned pods in the yellow fields and made preparations to leave.

And then Rhodes happened.

He brought up the valid point that she had no actual plan on how to save Loki. She had the pod, the supplies, the willpower to drive her, and her father's past words that would hopefully tell her where he would go. But she had no plan. She had tried to kill Thanos more than once and had failed every time. What would make this time any different?

Guilt and the feeling of failure weighed heavily upon her after that and all she wanted to do was talk. She was sick of keeping everything locked up. She needed to get it all out in the open, everything she was feeling. But she still couldn't just confide in anyone. Loki was the only one she ever talked to. Actually talked to, not just trivial stuff, not just friendly banter. But he wasn't here so that left only one other option in her mind: Gamora.

Nebula and Rhodes walked together until they found her sister and the other Guardians. Gamora looked so relieved and happy to see her and Nebula asked her if they could go talk somewhere. Alone. Gamora agreed and that's how they ended up sitting on the floor of some beautifully decorated room, with Nebula pouring her heart out. Pouring her frustrations out.

"Getting away from Thanos was the best thing for you. The best thing for me. But why did you-why did we make things more complicated by getting friends?"

Gamora looked puzzled for a moment. "You think our lives are more complicated because we have friends?"

Maybe that's not what she meant to say. She rubbed the back of her neck with her metal hand. "…I don't know. I just know that this pain is worse than anything Thanos ever inflicted upon me." Which was surprising. You would think literally having her body tore apart and replaced piece by bloody piece with mechanical parts would be the worse pain. It wasn't. This deep internal dread and unceasing guilt was worse.

"It hurts. More than if you were alone. But being with someone, having them have your back… it is the best feeling. It's better than anything you could have imagined."

"I'll lose my only friend if he dies," Nebula whispered, her eyes stinging with those tears that had been threatening to fall since St. Louis.

Gamora reached over to her and softly took her hand. "No you won't. You still have me. I'm your sister and your friend." Nebula found the idea of still having a friend comforting but it still didn't change her mood completely. "And if you give others a chance," Gamora continued, "they can never replace him but, you might surprise yourself. You might find a lot of friends."

Nebula bitterly scoffed, "It feels like such a fluke. Having a friend at all."

"Can I ask you something?" Gamora asked, to which Nebula nodded. "You always talked with the prisoners, but I just thought it was in an impassive way. A way to pass the time and well, cope. I never thought you would befriend one."

"That was a statement, not a question."

"I guess I want to ask you, what made him so special that you decided to let him in?"

Oh. That was a good question.

A really good question.

One that she had asked herself many times throughout the years. She was quiet for a minute or two trying to think of the best way to answer it. And then she said, "All the other prisoners they were…happy. They had come from wonderful lives, or at the very least, uneventful, normal lives. I longed to hear about them. To cope as you said. And then Loki's life was so different, so filled with regrets and pain… It was a different kind of pain, but I could sympathize with him more than any of the others and he understood me and my situation so well. He is a perceptive one…I don't know. I guess I just let my guard down with him because I understood his sorrow filled life more than I could ever understand a joyful one. What does that say about me?"

"About us." Nebula glanced to her sister. "The Guardians don't exactly have the happiest of "backstories" if you will. I think that people who have experienced similar trauma are just more drawn to each other. They certainly can relate more to each other then maybe someone who didn't."

Nebula shrugged. It made some sort of sense but she didn't know. She muttered, "I wonder if Lang has lived a mostly normal life. Maybe that's why nobody can figure him out except his girlfriend and daughter."

"And his rather talkative friend," Gamora added.

Nebula rolled her eyes at the mention of Lang's friend, Luis. "Oh, God, I forgot about him. I'm not too happy to be reminded of him."

"Sorry," Gamora said with a slight chuckle.

The lighter tone was gone as soon as it had appeared and they were back to the silence. Silence, for Nebula anyways, was the enemy. Silence meant that she could hear her thoughts, filled with all of her regrets and her trauma. She cleared her throat, breaking the damned silence if only for a moment. Then she quietly said, "I'm not good with my emotions…never have been, probably never will be. But talking helps. Thank you, sister, for listening to me ramble."

Gamora, who was still holding her hand, gave it a little squeeze and gave her a warm smile. "You're welcome. And I think you are better with emotions then you realize."

Nebula wasn't too sure about that. It had taken her a while to admit to herself that she did in fact love her sister and not just, as she had once said, hated her the least. And of course there was Loki. How long had she thought of him as a friend? Did she tell him that? No, not until recently anyways. But even then, it felt like there was more. They were friends and she genuinely cared about him, and yet it seemed like there was something else she felt about him. But she had no clue what it was or how to even define it. Good with emotions? Please.

At that very moment a blonde, very familiar looking woman walked into their room. She wore a red and blue uniform that had a Kree gold star on the front of it. And almost immediately, Nebula recognized this woman as being the same one who had messaged them. "Hello," the newcomer greeted. "I'm Captain Carol Danvers."

"Captain Marvel?" Gamora asked in realization. Danvers nodded. "I completely forgot that you were coming."

Danvers half smiled, but nothing about her stance was particularly inviting. Her hands were curled up into fists and she stood like a fighter would. She was either ready for a fight or that was just how she stood. "I've gotten that a lot today. I arrived about a half hour ago. Most of the Avengers were preoccupied with reuniting with their friend." Nebula and Gamora shared a confused look. Friend? Danvers said, "I believe his name is Vision."

Nebula nodded to herself. "The android? He's alive. Good." She never met the red man powered by the Mind Stone, but Loki had spoken well of him. That was good enough for her.

"Yes," Danvers said in agreement but soon she moved on. "I wanted to discuss my-our next step in defeating Thanos. A man named Stark said that if I wanted to know where Thanos had gone, I should talk to you two."

"Um," Gamora started, finally taking her hand away from Nebula's, "yes we might know a thing or two but now might not be the best time."

Danvers sighed, "Your friend? Or do you just want to rest up before making any plans?"

Perceptive, this one. Or maybe the others had told her something similar. "Both actually," Gamora told her.

Danvers sighed again. "I see. I'm sorry for having bothered you."

"You're anxious to leave," Nebula said, before the blonde could have a chance to leave.

The Captain paused and then said, "I was hoping I could get some information and then go kill Thanos, so yes, I guess I am anxious to leave."

Nebula and Gamora shared a skeptical look. Gamora turned back to Danvers and asked, "You think you can kill him single-handedly?"

"I did. A tall mysterious man with a cloak made me start to rethink that."

"Strange," Nebula muttered.

"Strange?" Danvers asked.

"Dr. Strange," Gamora clarified. "The man with the cloak."

Danvers nodded, understanding. "Interesting name. Somehow it suits him. But the point is I'm not so sure anymore."

"Why did you think you could?" Nebula asked, interested to see what the female Captain would say.

Carol half smirked, raised her hands up to her eye level, and then they started to illuminate. A bright golden light shined around and through her skin. "A light speed engine that was powered by the Tessaract was destroyed and I absorbed its power. I can fire photon-blasts which destroy basically everything."

"Sit down," Nebula told her after a minute. "We'll tell you what we know about where Thanos would have gone."

Gamora turned to her, a bit of concern in her eyes. "Nebula, we can wait."

Nebula sternly said, "Yes, we can. But that won't help Loki." Gamora silently nodded her head and decided not to push the matter.

"Okay." Danvers pulled up a chair and sat down. She had such an air of "business" compared to Nebula and Gamora's, who were still sitting on the floor, very causal appearance. Maybe this no nonsense attitude would be helpful in the end. Who knew? Certainly not Nebula. Danvers blew a few strands of her hair out of her face and said, "Tell me what you know."

…

"Mr. Stark?" Peter timidly asked him after a while of silence.

Tony both loved and hated silence. Loved because it gave him a chance to be able to think. Hated because…well, it gave him a chance to think. Thinking up inventions and such was good, dwelling on regrets… Yeah, that wasn't any good at all. Regrets were the cancer of the mind.

Wait, what was happening? Right. Peter. "Yeah?" Tony said, looking up from the mess of wires he was working on.

Peter seemed conflicted and honestly, sad. "Mr. Stark, I-I want to ask you something. And I already know that the first thing you'll say is something reassuring," which was one hundred percent true, "but I don't want reassuring, I want the truth… If Thanos is defeated, what will happen if we can't bring anyone back?"

The question threw Tony for a loop. "Why can't we bring anyone back?"

Peter put down the screwdriver he had in his hand and tried to explain. "Those stones are…level ten powerhouses. Not to mention scary. And Mr. Loki said that only people who are really strong, like really, really strong, can control them. The only one who can use them is Thanos. What if we have all the stones and we can't do anything with them?"

The kid was really worried about this. And damn it, the only things a kid his age should be worried about is usual high school crap, not whether or not they could use space gems to magically bring back half of the universe's population. "What about your chain idea?" Tony asked, remembering that Peter had suggested that the Avengers all share the power of the Infinity Stones through a chain.

"What if it doesn't work?"

Tony sighed, walked around the Hulk Buster suit so he could stand right in front of Peter, and calmly said, "We can always go back to the basics. We can send a search party of five to the Soul World."

Peter closed his eyes in frustration of all things. "Yeah, okay, but I guess I'm-I'm just trying to say if something happened to Aunt May, what would-?"

And then it all clicked for Tony. What would happen to him if Aunt May didn't come back? That's what he wanted to know. He was worried and conflicted about what would happen if his only family left was taken from him. And just knowing that the kid had to be concerned about these kinds of things, made Tony's chest tighten. That's why he cut him off. "I'd take you in, Peter."

Peter's eyes popped open in surprise. "What? You would?"

"Kid," Tony placed a hand on his shoulder, "you're not just a mentee to me. You're…you're like the son I never had." That little declaration shocked Peter. It shocked Tony too, if he was being honest with himself. It shouldn't have though because it was so obviously true.

After a moment of nothing happening, except Peter looking up at him with big wide shocked eyes, Tony tired smiled and pulled the kid in for a hug. It didn't take Peter long to hug him back. They just kind of stood there for a while and Peter muttered, "This is nice."

Tony chuckled and pulled away. "Yeah. But enough of this sappiness," he teased.

Peter smiled for the first time in a while. "Yeah. Oh, and never say never," Peter said, repeating what Tony had said to Bruce earlier. "You and Miss Potts could always have a kid together."

Tony laughed a little at the idea. He was ready to have a kid but it still scared him. Maybe that was normal. "True. Very true. Actually, I already have a name picked out in case we find ourselves in need of one."

"Really?" Peter asked, sounding like his usual excited self. "What is it?"

Tony smiled a little. "Morgan."

The rest of the day went fairly smoothly.

Tony and Peter made a lot of progress on the Hulk Buster suit and with any luck, it would be ready for tomorrow at six o'clock sharp. Shuri got the stone out of Vision's head. Properly this time and had put a red vibrannium plate over the spot where the stone had been in his forehead. After a few tests, it seemed like Vision was still Vision. Wanda was ecstatic.

Thor and Valkyrie never came back from checking in on the giant dwarf guy to see about their Gauntlet but Tony wasn't too concerned. He didn't feel like there was any foul play going on. Maybe the Gauntlet was almost finished and they decided to stay where they were and get some rest.

Those who went to help clean up all the messes in Wakanda had evidently done a good job. T'Challa was more than pleased. So was M'Baku. Most of the Avengers and Guardians regrouped a little later to finally eat something. A few people didn't show up like Barnes and Sam, so food was sent their way. It wasn't too long after that did a lot of the team go find themselves a place to sleep.

It was now night and Tony needed to get himself to sleep too, but what could he say? He needed to unwind. If only for a little bit because his mind was still so wired after the past few days. The fact that he could even process the last few days without having a mental breakdown was a miracle. Battles, aliens, too many close calls to count, revelations, and basically everything in-between. When this was all said and done, he would be surprised to find out that he didn't have an ulcer.

He rounded a corner and stopped almost immediately. Sitting on a silver chair, in the hallway was Bucky Barnes. The first thing he thought was he wanted to ask him about Steve's condition, considering Quill never freaking came back to tell anyone anything. But as soon as he felt himself about to call over to him and ask, he hesitated.

He just now realized that he had never, ever had a one-on-one conversation with Barnes. When would he have had time to? The first time he ever saw the guy in person was after he, Steve, Sam, and T'Challa had been brought in by the CIA to Vienna. And then Barnes had broken out of his little prison. Of course he saw him during the Avengers' little airport "civil war" but again, no time for conversation. And then there was when Tony had tried to…well… And then with everything that had occurred the last few days…

Let's put it this way, he was not sure he wanted to have a conversation all by his lonesome with the guy who Tony had tried to kill for killing his parents. It seemed like it would lead to a big headache and he was really trying to avoid those.

But it was too late. He stood there for too long. Barnes turned to him and caught him staring at him. Well, nothing he could do now. "Barnes," he greeted, slowly making his way over to the Winter Soldier. "Hey, how's Steve?"

Barnes eyed him before saying anything, like he was expecting to find distrust in his expression. "Good," he said after a while. "Still unconscious but Shuri said that was normal. Even with his wounds healed up perfectly, he still went through great trauma and he needs some more time to rest."

"Did Quill come and see you guys?"

"Yeah. He and Sam talked for a while. Told us your friend was alive and that the other Captain was here giving orders."

Tony half chuckled at the mention of Carol. "Yeah, she's a bit of a puzzle but she might be a big help for us."

Barnes nodded a little. "Quill told us we should go sleep. Sam's 'round the corner sleeping in a chair. Personally, I needed to think."

"Yeah, I get that…" Tony trailed off and before he knew it, silence. That stupid silence that he had such a love-hate relationship with was back again. Almost all of the thoughts in his head told him to leave but there was one that said something different: Make things right. Tony wasn't sure though. Okay, he had made things right with Steve and he knew that it wasn't Barnes' fault, but it was just hard to look the guy you tried to kill in the eye and say, oh by the way, I was an idiot, sorry. He finally huffed out a sigh, knowing he just had to do it. "Look, I made things right with Steve just before you came back from the Soul World and maybe I should-"

Barnes cut him off. "No. You don't." He said it with such a forceful sternness that it actually threw Tony off for a second. "I can't change what happened. And I don't expect you to forgive me for what I did."

When Tony wasn't so blinded by hatred, he could see just how remorseful the man was. God, hatred was just too corrosive and he hated it…that was a bit ironic, wasn't it? "It wasn't you," Tony softly said before he started his usual pacing. "It was Hydra. It was evil, secret super spies who wanted to rule the world. It was people who saw my dad as a threat and that was that. But it wasn't you." He stopped pacing almost as quickly as he started. Barnes didn't look convinced and in fact, almost seemed like he was looking for distrust in Tony's expression even more. Well, this wasn't working. He wished Steve was here. Steve was better at the "words of wisdom" and he could probably convince Barnes that Tony meant everything he said. Then he had a light bulb moment. He reached into his back pocket and pulled out the letter. The letter. "Here," he said handing it over to Barnes, who just gave it a questioning look.

"What is that?"

"A letter from Howard Stark to me." Barnes' eyes widened. "Loki went to the afterlife plane to make sure you guys who got dusted weren't dead and he met a few people along the way."

Barnes looked down right scared but slowly he took the letter and cautiously read it to himself. Tony waited patiently for him to read through the letter, watching Barnes' expression change from fear, to shock, to understanding. It didn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that he was surprised that Howard didn't hold him accountable for his or Maria's death. And it also didn't take a rocket scientist to see that even though he was surprised, he also respected Howard enough to believe his words to be true.

Barnes was done reading but he kept eyeing the letter. "I always liked Howard," he muttered to himself. He sighed and then said, a bit louder and clearer this time, "First time I saw him was in 1942. Steve and I went to the Stark Pavilion and Howard was showing off some tech he had that could make a car fly. It failed, but it was still so…unlike anything I had ever seen. He was always tinkering with things. It was so cool. Steve hated it though. He thought you shouldn't fix things that weren't broken."

Tony tried to imagine his dad in his younger years, showing off flying cars in the 40s. And of course, Steve would never- "Wait, so he had an aversion to technology even then?"

Barnes had a hint of a smile. "Oh, yeah. I remember this one time, Howard had upgraded Steve's motorcycle. He added all these gadgets to it, including a speed booster. The first day Steve tried it out he ran the thing into a tree."

Tony couldn't help but start to laugh. "Oh, my God, really?"

Barnes nodded, also laughing. "Yeah. It was great. Steve was fine of course, a little dazed but fine. Howard was mad. He spent a month working on that bike and now it was crushed against a tree."

He couldn't get the image of Steve crashing into a tree and his dad being furious at him out of his mind. It was just too damn funny. He laughed some more. "Well, I'm not forgetting that story anytime soon. Can't wait for old Steve to wake up so I can tease him about it." He and Barnes laughed for a while longer before they both quieted down, this time the silences wasn't so horrible. "I hope we're good," he said quietly and genuinely.

Barnes nodded, smiling a bit. "Yeah."

"Good… I'm going to try and unwind, or something. Good chat though." Barnes offered him the letter back but Tony shook his head. "No, that's okay. You hang onto it for a while." Barnes nodded again, smiling a bit more.

And with that, the two parted ways. Tony felt a whole lot better. A weight had been lifted and he hadn't even known there had been a weight to begin with. Hatred really was corrosive and to be rid of it was so enlightening.

He didn't really have a chance to enjoy this new feeling because after a few minutes, he ran right into Strange's cloak. And when he said ran right into it, he meant that he turned a corner and the first thing he saw was red.

"Wha-?" he exclaimed taking a step or two backwards. Then he realized it was the cloak, free floating a foot off of the ground. "Oh, it's you. The loyal piece of outerwear. Strange literally left you hanging." The cloak's high collar moved up and down, like it was nodding. Tony scoffed, "I'm talking to a cape…God nothing surprises me anymore." Then the cloak smacked his arm. "Ow! Hey! What was that for? Calling you "cape"?" The cloak nodded its collar again. "Well, sorry."

The cloak suddenly flew closer to him and wrapped itself around his arm. And before Tony could even think, the stupid thing started pulling him down the hall! "What the-are you kidding me? Let go. Let go! Will you…" He tried to pull at the material and get it off of him but there was no use. "Oh, fine. Where are you taking me?" The cloak, not surprisingly, didn't answer. It just continued to drag him down the hallway, turning different corridors almost at random. But it wasn't at random. The cloak didn't stop pulling him until they turned a corner and they saw Nebula sitting on the floor, alone. "Jeez, everyone's up," he whispered to himself as the cloak unwrapped itself from his arm. It then pointed to Nebula. Tony glared at the cloak. "Strange put you up to this, didn't he? Because for some reason, me talking to the blue meanie at this moment in time is going lead to our ultimate victory. Am I right?" The cloak shrunk into itself. Well, it certainly didn't have a good poker face. Tony shook his head and grumbled, "Strange…he's such an ass hat." The cloak smacked him again. "Ow!"

"Who's there?" Nebula demanded after hearing him. Before Tony could turn back to the cloak to give it a level glare, it flew away. He begrudgingly walked over to the blue cyborg girl. He wasn't dragging his feet because he had anything against Nebula, he just had everything against being a puppet in Strange's manipulation.

And not just a manipulation, a deception.

Learning that Strange had in fact been holding out on him, all of them in fact, had been like a gut punch to stomach. He never really liked the wizard doctor but when the two of them and Peter were stuck on that flying doughnut ship, Strange proved himself to be a valued ally. And he proved himself twice over during the confrontation on Titan. But even though he didn't consider the two of them to be friends, he couldn't help feel a bit like he had been betrayed. How could he not feel betrayed? If you learned that someone you trusted, even if you only trusted them to do their job, had valuable information that could potentially save the lives of everyone you loved and cared about, and they never said a word about it… You'd be pissed.

And he knew about Loki.

He knew about it far in advance. And he just stood by and watched it happen.

When Tony got within a few feet of were Nebula sat on the floor, he waved. "Just me."

"What do you want?" she demanded.

Wow, okay. She'd didn't really mince words did she? "Nothing in particular. Just saying hi…Hi."

"Hi," she said, sounding no less unfriendly. "I'm fine and I don't want to talk about it."

He held his hands up in mock surrender. "Okay. I don't wanna talk about it either, believe me."

"Good."

"Great." Nebula's black eyes glanced away from him to the floor. She didn't want to talk about it, but she didn't have to. Since it was revealed that Loki had been the one to go with Thanos, in his place no less, the blue meanie had been deeply depressed. It was obvious. She and Loki seemed to have a pretty good friendship. Or…relationship? Hmm… Tony never thought about it before but maybe their little bond was more than just friends. But whatever, he could ship Nebuki later. The point was, she was clearly taking this hard and she needed to get her mind off of it. "Okay," he said, clapping his hands together. She jumped a little, startled. "Let's do something. Let's play some cards or do some tabletop football or something. Anything other than drowning in our own misery. That's bad for the heart, you know?"

She stared at him for a long time before slowly saying, "My heart won't be giving out anytime soon. And what's tabletop football?"

Tony shrugged. "It's just football played on the tabletop."

"What's football?"

"…What do you guys do in space for fun?"

"Not die."

"Fair enough," he muttered. "Look, I'll teach you. Just, come on."

He held out his hand to her. She looked at his hand, then up to him, then back to his hand. She then let out an annoyed sigh, took his hand, and said, "Fine." Tony smiled a bit and helped her to her feet. They found a table and chairs to sit at. Nebula tapped her fingers impatiently on the tabletop as he folded a piece of shiny paper into a tiny triangle. This would serve as their football.

"Alright," he said when he was done. He showed her the little triangle. "So, this is a tiny ninja throwing triangle. Just kidding. It's a paper football. Now, make finger guns." When all he got in response was a confused look, he made finger guns so she could copy him. She did. "Right. And put them together like this." He turned his hands so that his index fingers were touching. Again, she copied him. "Good. Now, my objective is to flick the football into your little goal you just made. Like this…"

He flicked the football towards her goal and was immediately surprised when Nebula aggressively caught it. Tony couldn't help but flinch backwards. Well, he might have gotten more than he bargained for by suggesting this. "You don't need to do that. Because, uh, you're just holding the position. Here, let's try again." She gave him back the football and he tried again. This time she held the position and he made a goal. He nodded to himself. "Cool. Now it's your turn." He held up his own goal and waited for her to flick it over. She had to attempt it a few times before finally making a goal. "That's a goal. We're now one apiece."

They continued for who knew how long, but eventually they were tied six to six. He glanced up at her as she held up her goal. "We're tied up now. Feel the tension? It's fun." And maybe he shouldn't be doing this but… He purposely missed. "That was terrible. Now you gotta a chance to win." She took her turn and made the winning goal. "And now you've won." At first he felt silly for throwing the game because she wasn't a child. She didn't have to win to make her feel better. But when he told her that she won, she had this almost shocked expression. Like she was surprised to hear that she had won. Like up until this moment, she had never won anything in her life. Well, she had lived with Thanos as her father…how often could a person win living with a man like that? "Congratulations. Fair game." He extended his hand out to shake her hand, she reluctantly took it. After shaking hands, he asked her, "Have fun?"

Nebula was quiet. And Tony honestly thought she wasn't going to answer but then she nodded and said, "It was fun."

Tony smiled. "Best two out of three?"

"Okay."

"You know, if this was actual football, each goal would equal seven points."

"Why count by seven?"

Tony shrugged. "I don't know. Maybe the guy who invented football just wanted to make the score system interesting." He won the next game and they were in the middle of their third game when he asked her, "Danvers ever come to talk to you and your sister?"

"Yes," she said.

"Cool. Do you know where Thanos might have gone?"

"Gamora and I had a few ideas."

"Alright." Okay, so either she was deeply invested in winning this game, which she was leading the game five to two because he seriously was sucking right now, or she was being short with him because she didn't want to talk about. When it was his turn again, he paused. "Seriously though, are you…okay?"

Nebula let her goal slowly fall and said an embittered, "I'm always okay."

Tony half chuckled, although nothing was funny. "Good to know. I'm always okay too, just to let you know. At least around the general public. Around my fiancé, my friends, my team…I'm not okay a lot of the time. And that's perfectly fine. You get what I mean?"

"Don't take it personally. I just don't trust anyone."

"Really?" he asked in disbelief. "Anyone?"

She rolled her eyes like an agitated diva and huffed, "Fine. I trust like two people, okay?"

"Your sister and Loki," he said. It wasn't a question, but an observation. "Ironically when I think about both of them, the first thing I see is green." Nebula let out a small chuckle, much to Tony's surprise. "Huh, a chuckle. That's gotta count as progress."

"Hmm," she muttered with a small, tired smile. "Progress."

…

Steve was dreaming.

He was running towards Thanos, determination to defeat the villain swelling up in him. T'Challa was to his left, Drax was to his right. Rhodey was firing missiles at Thanos. The other two went to attack him and then…then they were knocked out of the fight. Steve was all who was left.

Then there was a fight. A powerful burst of rainbow energy. Blood. Pain… Lots of pain actually.

He still was in pain. A dull aching pain that spread from his midsection where that burst of energy hit him head on. And it took him a second to realize that he was waking up. He opened his eyes a bit. He wasn't sure where he was, everything was still foggy, vision included. But it was clear that he was lying in a bed of some sorts. A hospital bed? Wouldn't be the first time he woke up in one of those before.

It also took him a second to realize that he wasn't dreaming. He was remembering. Remembering what had happened in St. Louis. But he was alive and had no memory of what happened after he had been incapacitated by Thanos.

As Steve tried to remember anything past blacking out and wait for his eyesight to be able to focus on his surroundings, he started to make out a faint light. It flickered like a dying candle, but it wasn't a yellow light like a candle but a white light. Well, if he was dying and seeing that bright white light you were supposed to see… But he didn't feel like he was dead or dying. He could hear the hums and beeps of monitors around him and his eyesight was getting clearer every second. No, he wasn't dying. Then what the heck was up with this light?

The flickering light was actually quite small and it was coming from the left side of the room. He turned his head hoping to see the source. He saw someone sitting in the corner of the room, the light coming from them. Maybe it was Bucky or Sam, holding…a phone. It had to be one of those so called "smart" phones, glowing bright in the dim room. That had to be it. But just as Steve came to an explanation he was happy with, his vision finally focused.

It wasn't Bucky or Sam sitting in a comfy looking chair in the corner of the room. It was the rugged, quirky leader of the Guardians of the Galaxy: Peter Quill. And it wasn't a phone creating the faint light, the light was illuminating itself right off of Quill's fingers.

"Quill?" His throat felt rough and scratchy, his voice sounded even worse.

Quill's attention on his oddly glowing fingers was broken and he nearly jumped out of his chair. The light completely disappeared when he saw Steve awake. "Oh! Hey! You're awake! That's great." He quickly stood up and found a light switch on the wall. Or well, something Steve assumed was a light switch. The dim room was suddenly lit up. Steve flinched at the sudden light. It wasn't terrible. It wasn't like a traditional hospital with its white walls and blinding Florissant lights.

And when Steve finally got his bearings back, he recognized the fancy blue and gold decorations in the room. "We're…back in Wakanda?" he asked as Quill came over to stand near the foot of the bed.

"Yeah," Quill said with a nod. "We needed to get back to heal you and the rest of the team up. 'Cause you were hurt pretty bad. Like sound the funeral bells bad." Quill suddenly had a guilty look on his face and quickly said, "Sorry, man. Not funny."

Steve didn't find the joke offensive. He was more concerned with figuring out his missing time. "Where's-?"

"Oh, your pals? Terminator guy and Falcon? Yeah, they were here for a long time. I said I would check in on you guys and I told them they should get some sleep or something, especially with us getting up so freaking early in the morning. Not that I'm complaining. The sooner we can leave and go after Mr. Monster the better…" Quill trailed off and crossed his arms, lost in his own little world.

"Mr. Monster" could only be one person. "Thanos," Steve said in a low voice and suddenly the pieces were coming together. "I was taken. To be part of the fifteen…what happened?"

Quill rubbed his temples. "Crap. Sorry man, of course. Lot of stuff went down. Thanos captured the fifteen and was gonna kill them…ah, you guys at the Arch. Then Stark came outta nowhere and was willing to hand himself and the two Infinity gems we got back over to Thanos."

Steve's mind was suddenly spinning with this new information. "Tony? Tony's with Thanos?" he asked, quickly sitting up. This was a mistake because he then felt extremely light headed. Like you do after going on a rollercoaster. With five loops.

Quill was soon by his side, trying to push him back down, saying, "Whoa! Hang on there! The Princess's medical metal does magic, but don't push yourself."

Steve held his head in his hands as he let himself be pushed back so he was back to laying down. "Sorry," he said.

"Don't apologize." Quill let out a deep sigh and began talking again. "And no, Stark's not with Thanos…Loki is…" Steve froze. Loki? But how did he-? His expression must have dripping with confusion because Quill quickly explained, "His magic. He and Stark did a whole Invasion of the Body Snatchers switch-a-roo and ah…" Quill waved his hands around in a few circles trying to think up the best words but eventually gave up with a shrug. "But we have all the gems. All except for the red one. Loki left us the rest and then Stark and Banner used the yellow one to resurrect the red robot."

"Vision? Vision's alive?"

"Yeah." With that one simple word, the last few days filled with their regret seemed to melt away. Even if they had defeated Thanos and brought everyone else back from the Soul World, Vision would have still been a casualty. A casualty that shouldn't have happened. Steve had been in a war, seen the good men die, seen soldiers die, and while he had grown to cope with it, he never wanted to go through that kind of loss again. "Pretty cool dude," Quill started, shaking Steve from his thoughts. "You know, for being an A.I. Personally thought A.I. was always going to try and take over the world, but then again, I watch too many movies."

Steve half smiled at that. "Did anything else happen while I was out?"

Quill shook his head that no, nothing else happened, but then he suddenly exclaimed, "Oh, yeah! That Captain Marvel lady showed up. She previously said it would be a few days before she got here but apparently she made really good time and got here early. She's neat too. She can fire these lasers and she even was a Starjammer." Steve must have given him a questioning look, because Quill then explained what a "Starjammer" was. "They're kind of like these really badass space freedom fighters. They inspired the Ravagers, which is what I used to be, but the Ravagers kinda fell into being space pirates. I always thought the stories were just a bunch of urban legends but, guess not. Pretty cool…"

Steve nodded. "You said the team was leaving in the morning?"

"Oh, right, sorry. Yeah, we gotta hunt down Thanos. Get Loki back."

Yes, of course. Loki had gone in Tony's place. He had gone with Thanos, the tyrant. Steve had to admit that even though he had tried to put forth the effort to trust Loki, even if only a little bit, when this whole mess started, he hadn't considered the trickster god to be a part of the team. Not really. But after everything that they had all gone through… The loss, the joy, the battles. And then he traded himself over to Thanos to save the fifteen… Yeah, he was an Avenger and as co-leader of the Avengers, Steve would do whatever it took to get him back.

Steve nodded again and muttered, "Alright." He then began to sit back up again, slower this time.

But Quill wasn't having any of it. "Dude, seriously?" The rugged man tried to push him back again, but Steve brushed his hands away and successfully sat up. His head was only a little light-headed this time. "You're more stubborn then I thought you'd be."

"I'm okay," he reassured him. "Just give me a minute and I'll be up in no time."

Quill scoffed a little and paced around the room, eyeing the wall decorations. After a few minutes, Steve felt ready to try standing but was distracted when Quill suddenly let out a loud chuckle. "You know, ah, my great-grandma met you. At one of your U.S.O. shows." Steve was surprised to say the least. Quill glanced at him and rubbed the back of his neck. "She talked about it a lot. "I met Captain America!" I was all like sure nana, sure. I was like seven at the time. I didn't care. My mom thought it was pretty awesome though, so she ah, wanted me to get the importance of…you and history and all that junk. So, she found some of those retro Captain America comics from the '40s. Gotta say, big fan of those. When Loki was telling me and the Guardians and Spider-Kid about how he went to the afterlife place, he mentioned you along with the other heroes and I thought to myself, well there's no way that this is the Captain America. It's gotta be a wannabe fan or something. But we arrived here and it was really you. Gruffy, bearded you but regardless… I'm not a huge fanboy but man, did I want to go up to you with a million questions."

Steve, even after all of these years, was not used to being anything close to the word, famous. He certainly wasn't Tony Stark who still from time to time enjoyed soaking in the spotlight. But sometimes his "fans" were down to earth people who didn't treat him like he was more than human. He remembered Phil Coulson and how he had collected Captain American trading cards as a hobby. Steve smiled a bit and said, "Was one of your questions, can you sign my comic books?"

Quill started laughing. "No, but good idea." He pulled up the chair he had been sitting at earlier and sat down. He folded his hands and thought for a moment before saying, "Do you miss it? The '40s?"

"Yes, I do." He had said the words so quickly, like it was a reflex. But a question like that shouldn't just have a knee jerk response and he felt a need to explain himself. "And if I were given a chance to go back…I honestly don't know if I would though. I lost the love of my life but…I feel like a different person now. The old me wanted to serve and then settle down, have a normal life. But for a while there, I was content being in charge of this band of heroes. Having them all come back together after being separated… I lost one family already, I do not want to give up another." Quill smiled and nodded, content with his answer. Steve wanted to ask a question of his own now. "What were you doing? When I woke up you had some sort of, well, light."

"Oh, yeah. Um, it's a long story but the shortened version is I had this ability to use this light. And I thought I no longer had this power but I…" Quill raised his left hand and on the tips of every one of his fingers, a light began to flicker. The lights were as small as the flame produced by a lighter. "Still can do it. A little anyways."

Why was it that just when Steve began to believe that nothing could surprise him, someone surprised him? As the seconds passed, Quill shook his hand and the lights vanished. His happy expression also vanished. "What's wrong?" Steve asked.

"I…I feel guilty." Steve didn't understand why but Quill quickly explained, "I didn't remember my own grandfather and because of my stupidity the city I spent the greater part of my childhood in was ransacked and my friend is now with the ultimate space Nazi."

Steve remembered how Tony had blamed Quill for messing up their plan by forgetting his grandfather in St. Louis. Steve was quiet for a minute before saying, "Sometimes…we hold ourselves to a higher standard because we think ourselves as more than just being human. We're "superheroes", so we have to always have the answers. We have to always do everything right. But even though we have super powers, we're not super human. We are just human and sometimes we make really human mistakes. In an attempt to protect my oldest friend, I helped break up the Avengers. If I hadn't done that, we won't have been separated and scattered like we were. We could have come together faster, we could have been a united force. Maybe we could have even stopped Thanos the first time, or if we still had lost then at least we would have lost together… You can't live in the past. Have to except the present and move on."

Quill's eyes shined with a sort of relief or understanding, as he nodded. Quill was quiet for a while after that, which was a little odd because he seemed like the type of person who was always talking. But then he said, "You're really good at that, you know?"

"Well, I'm ninety years old. I should have poetic words of wisdom."

Before either one of them could say anything else, Scott rushed in out of nowhere. He looked wired and like he had a million things running through his brain. "Scott?" Quill questioned, standing from his chair. "Where've you been, man? Lotta crap happened."

Scott's head bobbed up and down like a bobble head. "Vision and Captain Marvel. I know. Look, I need your help." Scott turned to Steve and seemed to notice him for the first time. "Captain Steve, sorry, America Rogers. Glad you're awake, you look a lot better." He spun back to Quill. "Quill-Peter, I need your help. You have navigation charts, right? Of the planets and their coordinates?"

"…Yeah?" Quill said, his confusion dripping on that one word.

"Great!" Scott exclaimed, practically jumping. "Come on! I'll explain everything."

Scott was already running to the door, but Quill hadn't taken a step. He glanced at Steve, like he was waiting for the okay. "Go. I'll figure out how to call Shuri with one of these," he pointed to all the monitors and screens surrounding the bed, "things. I'm not technology savvy."

Quill smiled a little. "Thanks for the talk." He went to follow Scott but then paused and said, "Oh…and I'll take you up on your offer to sign my comic books later." And with that, the quirky man left.

…

Illusion casting was a delicate art form.

If done correctly, you shouldn't be able to tell the difference between fantasy and reality.

And thank the stars for Loki's illusion casting skills because Thanos had completely bought that he was Tony Stark and that he had the Mind and Time Stones.

It really was all in the details. Mirroring Stark's appearance and copying his voice wasn't enough. He had to sound like Stark. And the Stones had to not only look real, but they had to have their distinctive, magic-infused glow around them. Fortunately, Loki didn't have to worry too much about the fake Infinity Stones because the Reality Stone did the brunt of the illusion making. He only had to focus on impersonating Stark.

He had been happy to have something to focus most of his thoughts on, otherwise his mind might start to wander.

Like how he was handing himself over to his former torturer. Like how the dread and fear was beginning to creep back in. Like how his hands were beginning to tremble. Like-

"Yo, grape man," he had said in Stark's voice, stepping from what had been his hiding spot at the base of the St. Louis Arch. "Grape man" was literally the first thing that came to his head. It sounded like something Stark would say. "These are what you want isn't it?" He raised the fake stones in the air and saw the almost giddy gleam in Thanos's eyes. How he hated seeing that monster look so damn happy. Well, time to negotiate and pray that he could pull this off. "So, here's the deal, you call your army off, send them back through the wormhole you so nicely ripped open in the sky…" He found himself pausing midsentence. His mind thought back to Stark-Tony and how he had been desperate to stop him.

"No, you idiot, we need you."

Tony had said that as a retort to Loki's reasoning that the Avengers needed Tony. That meant a lot to him, hearing that. And maybe they did need him. But that was all the more reason he should do this. He would do whatever was necessary to protect his friends.

To protect, dare he say it, his family.

He hardened his resolve and finished his sentence. "And then you and I go somewhere and I'll give you the stones."

Thanos's eyes still had that gleam and now there was a hint of a smile. He raised his right hand outward and said, "I'll take the stones now."

Yeah, only when Hell freezes over is that going to happen.

Loki smiled his best fake smile and shook his head. "Yeah, I think I'll keep my two bargaining chips until after the space army from hell is gone, thank you very much." Thanos fully smiled this time and nodded his head in agreement.

Thanos had agreed to his terms.

He actually agreed to his terms.

By some miracle, Loki had gotten Thanos to not only agree to call off his army, but then Thanos clenched his fist, the one with the Gauntlet on, and he actually sent his army away! The Outriders ran from every corner of the city in a mad rush to get back to the metal triangle shaped ships that were still standing in the nearby river. And the Chitauri flew by the hundreds to the opened portal in the sky. They were actually leaving.

Despite his happy disbelief, Loki still gave Thanos a level glare. And he had to admit, wearing the disguise of someone else, especially someone that Thanos actually had some smidge of respect for, was empowering. Don't get him wrong, he was still terrified that any moment his illusion would flicker and Thanos would realize that he had been tricked, but he wasn't as terrified as he would have been if he himself had gone out to negotiate with the Titan.

It felt a bit cowardly, hiding behind someone else's features. But Tony had promised himself and the stones. Thanos would not have accepted Loki and the stones, simple as that.

He finally tore his eyes from Thanos and glanced at the fifteen poor souls who had been taken. They were all suspended in the air, being held up by flickering rainbow lights. He eyed all of the squirming people and felt his stomach tighten at the sight.

Thor was the first one he saw and it gave him this almost surreal feeling. The mighty Thor trapped in a situation that was impossible to get out of. How many times had Thor been against the odds? And how many times had he miraculously come out of the fight on top? To see the arrogant warrior, the selfless hero, his…his big brother in a helpless situation that would have resulted in his certain death had Loki not come out to negotiate when he had…

No point on dwelling on the "what-ifs".

And then there was Nebula. He didn't feel surreal when he saw her, only deep empathy. Being at her father's mercy was nothing new to her and yet she still was terrified. No amount of time could erase what Thanos had done to her, the fear instilled in her. He wanted to hug her, tell her everything was going to be okay. He couldn't.

Rocket, Clint, Natasha, and Rhodey all kept up a brave front in the face of certain death. And now there was not at all hidden shock written all over their faces. Shock that Tony Stark was going to hand himself over to Thanos. They were going to be even more shocked when they learned the truth.

Loki was doing this for them, but he couldn't help but feel guilty because he knew by saving them in this manner he was going to put them through a lot of pain. He never even got to say goodbye…

Shuri, Ned, Darcy, Pepper, Christine, Laura, and a white-haired elderly man who he assumed to be Quill's grandfather, where not so prideful to put up a front of fearlessness. They looked downright petrified. Bruce looked more annoyed then scared and of course, he was just as surprised as everyone else. And then there was Steve. He was the only one of the fifteen who was not fighting to break free from his bonds because he was unconscious. Not just unconscious. He was seriously injured.

"Let them down," he demanded, facing Thanos once again.

"After we leave," Thanos said.

"They're no threat to you. Come on, the de-" Loki had to catch himself from saying "the dear captain". It was habit at this point. He quickly started over. "Look at him." He pointed to Steve. "He is unconscious!" Thanos was silent but suddenly he appeared amused.

Why in stars name is he so happy?

"What, is this amusing for you?"

Thanos had the nerve to chuckle, "Fun is not something one thinks about when trying to ensure the salvation of the universe, but this does put a smile on my face."

Loki felt his hand clench into fists. "And that right there proves that you're insane."

"Do enlighten me," Thanos said calmly.

This freedom to speak his mind could be dangerous, but he didn't care. All he wanted to do was tell this bastard off. So that's just what he did. "Everything that you have done, the countless atrocities, the slaughter of populations, it's all been because the universe's resources are limited. Cut away half the population and then there will finally be enough for everyone, but newsflash genius! You had the most powerful items in the entire multiverse and you could have used them for good. If you were so concerned about future lives, you could have used the stones to create an infinite amount of food, water, land! But no, you had to tear families apart, erase friends, and force the whole universe to suffer from the pain of loss and that makes you an indescribable psychopath. Joke's on you buddy. You said a reckoning is coming for us? No. A reckoning is coming for you."

After all that he had said, shouted, his only response was mock surprise. "Oh really?"

Stars, did Loki want to rip this guy's throat out. "Yes," he said through gritted teeth, "We will never stop. And even if we fail, I promise you that if we cannot save the souls you stole, then you can be damned sure we will avenge every single one of them."

Okay, so that last part was basically what Tony had said to him five years ago before the Battle of New York. But it had sounded so defiant at the time and it sounded defiant now. And that's what he wanted to be, defiant. He wanted Thanos to know that not everyone was so ready to just accept what Thanos thought was best for them.

And Thanos…stayed calm. He nodded his head slowly and said, "This is why I like you Stark. You're stubborn and headstrong and you do not care what anyone thinks of you." Stubborn, maybe. Headstrong, definitely. Did not care what others thought of him? Yeah, no, he cared far too much. Fearing he would give himself away, Loki glanced away. He found himself fidgeting with the fake stones out of anxious habit, waiting for the inevitable. "The army is gone."

Loki looked back up, Thanos was motioning for him to step closer. He reluctantly did. He stole one more look at the fifteen and behind them, past the barrier, the rest of the team. If he spent too much time thinking about them and all the things he wanted to say but couldn't…he was liable to lose his concentration on his illusion. If this was it, if he never got to see them again, well, this wasn't a fair way to get to say goodbye. But at least he had people he would miss. People who would miss him. He used to have nothing and this, however unfair of a way to part ways, was better than anything he had ever had before.

The team's worry and concern was so blinding that again, he felt guilty for putting them through this. He smiled a little and though his voice still sounded like Tony's, his words were his own. "Guys, don't fret. I got this all under control. Besides, I have faith that it will all work out in the end."

He wondered if Thor would pick up on the fact that he was repeating his words. He wondered if he tipped any of the team off and they now knew that it was really him going with Thanos. All of these thoughts were starting to distract him. He needed to focus on having the situation under his control. There was no way he was going to give Thanos any more power over this situation then he already had.

So, taking away the rest of the Infinity Stones in Thanos's Gauntlet seemed like the most reasonable thing to do. Like how he had stolen the Reality Stone, he simply extended his illusion to make it appear like the Space, Power, and Soul Stones were still in there proper places. But he had them now and he would leave them behind for the others to put in their own Gauntlet.

Simple as that.

It really made him want to slap his forehead. Here they had come up with these elaborate schemes to steal back the stones when he could've simply just conjured them up. He had been overthinking the situation. Not everyone knew what the strengths and limitations of his magic was and the team was stressed to the max, so fine. But what was Strange's excuse? He must have known. He had to have known.

Yet another unanswered question that involved Dr. Stephen Strange.

Whatever, he had more important things to worry about. He had a feeling that Thanos would be taking them to Titan. It was his home planet and if he was going to explain his glorious purpose to him, where better else to do it? But Loki wasn't keen on the idea of going to Thanos's home world, even if it was an extinct planet. Any place where Thanos could possibly have the upper hand should be avoided at all costs. And Loki had the Space Stone so he could take them anywhere in the universe and as long as he had the Reality Stone with him, Thanos would be none the wiser.

But where was a safe place?

Off world, obviously. He wanted to keep Earth safe. Somewhere that had a lower population. That ruled out a lot of places. It would help if Loki knew a little bit about the place so he could have the upper hand, if only for a little bit. He knew of thousands of worlds, but during the majority of his life he had stayed mostly within the viscidity of the Nine Realms. Maybe…

And then it hit him.

He had the perfect place in mind.

I'm going "home".

He created the blue portal that engulfed him and Thanos. Once the portal was close to closing, he dropped all of the stones, except for the Reality Stone. They reached their destination and he used the stone to create the illusion of Titan.

Thanos let out a deep breath and smiled when he saw his breath. "Bit of a cold day, isn't it? Apologizes, Stark. I know you humans don't last long in the cooler temperatures. But we're back. Back to where we met." Loki let out a deep breath of his own. Thank the stars! He had been right about Thanos wanting to go back to Titan. It was one thing to hijack the teleportation, take them somewhere completely different, and trick Thanos by using the Reality Stone, but it would have been difficult to trick him if he had wanted to go somewhere else, like his ship. And thank the starts again for letting Thanos think that the colder temperature was normal. Because it wasn't. The odds were on his side today.

"Yeah," Loki muttered, "Love a good call back. Not that this isn't great and everything, but why take us to an abandoned, dead planet?"

Thanos slowly walked around their dusty, rubble filled surroundings. He reached up to touch a large rock that protruded up from the ground and before Loki could think to make the illusion solid, Thanos winced. He suddenly grabbed his left shoulder in clear pain. In this bright lighting, even if it was only an illusion, Loki could see just how bad Thanos's arm really was and how much it was affecting him. He almost immediately shrugged it off. "You wanted to understand my purpose. This planet is more than a lifeless hunk of rock floating in space. It is my beginning."

"Oh, who knew, Thanos has an origin story." Thanos chuckled quietly and then went about telling him about how Titan had become over populated to the point of eventual extinction and how he was banished because of his crazed plan of mass genocide as a solution. Loki already knew all of this. Thanos might think himself a prophet but in reality he was just a guy spewing out his autobiography to anyone who would listen.

When he was close to finishing, Loki interrupted him, "And then several decades later you kidnap a bunch of kids, train them to be mass murderers, cause havoc on hundreds of planets, steal six stones, and wipe out half the universe. Gotta be honest, it's not really heartwarming TV special material."

Thanos chuckled again. "I know you think me cruel, but you have to understand…" He waved his uninjured arm around, trying to think of the best words. "All this death, all that I have done…it has never been personal."

"Really?" Loki asked in disbelief. "You almost killing our loved ones in a spectacle wasn't personal?"

Thanos's expression changed. He suddenly looked so frustrated. As if Loki not understanding where he was coming from was so irritating. Well…technically, Thanos wasn't trying to make Loki understand, he was trying to make Tony understand. Though if he was here instead, Loki figured Tony won't understand either. "What I wanted was to create a grateful and thriving universe that will never know dark days. You and your unruly Avengers only focused on what you lost, not what you had to gain. I will admit that taking your precious loved ones, coming this close to draining the life out of them…I enjoyed that. But here we are, compromising. I have held up my end, now it is your turn."

Thanos lifted his right hand outwards, expectedly.

He wanted the stones.

Loki happily gave Thanos the fake stones and couldn't help but feel smug as Thanos placed them in his Gauntlet. Smug that he of all people was tricking the so called "most powerful being in existence."

"What will you do with them?" Loki asked.

Thanos eyed the fake stones as they glistened in the light. "The work is done. It will always be done. The stones serve no purpose anymore, other than temptation. And after all I have strived to create a peaceful universe, I do not want there to be wars over them. Power corrupts the mind."

"Preachin' to the choir," Loki muttered.

"I shall destroy them."

Loki's eyes widened. "You can't…they're the most powerful-There is no way you…Can you do that?"

"I can use the stones to destroy the stones…You seem shaken up, Stark." Loki was but not for the reasons Thanos thought. To keep the illusion going he would have to trick Thanos into believing the stones were destroyed, reduced to nothing but atoms. And he wasn't sure if he could pull it off. Thanos continued talking, gloating was more like it. "Did you think that you would be able to steal them from me? Go back to your little blue and green planet? Undo all of my hard work?"

"Arrogance does not look good on you Thanos. Have you ever tried death? I think it'd look great on you."

Thanos's demeanor was calm but his eyes were full of rage. "What makes you and your world so headstrong, I wonder?"

Loki shrugged. "No clue. We're all kinds of stubborn and personally, I love it."

"Hmm. Stubbornness cannot delay the inevitable. And I am inevitable." Without warning, Thanos snapped his fingers to destroy the stones.

This will either go well…or it won't.

Loki scrambled to create yet another illusion. Using his magic he made a bright white light that radiated off of the Gauntlet. He then simply let the illusion of the stones fall, because the light was so bright that Thanos could not see the stones disappear in a flash of red. Before the light faded he added more cracks to the Gauntlet, because to use the stones again to this extreme, would cause the already twisted and mangled Gauntlet to look worse. And speaking of worse, the final touches would come from the Reality Stone to make Thanos's left arm and left side of his neck have more burn marks, make the purple-pink skin black and shriveled.

The scene played out perfectly: The light radiated off the Gauntlet, blinding them both for a second, and when it faded the stones were gone and Thanos and his precious Gauntlet looked more than a little broken.

Loki had done it.

In a matter of seconds, the combined power of his magic and the Reality Stone had done it.

Thanos eyed the empty Gauntlet and his horrible looking arm. "I did it," he said in a mixture of relief and surprise. "It's done… And yet…I feel no different." Loki scrunched his eyebrows together in confusion. "When I snapped my fingers," Thanos explained, as he continued to eye his arm, "an immense surge of power radiated up my arm and neck. It burned me. It could have killed me. I just snapped my fingers and I have more burns. But I did not feel that burning pain. Why?"

Oh, no.

Illusions could be solid, could feel real to the touch, but no illusion could cause the feeling of actual physical harm. Not the Reality Stone and certainly not his magic.

"You asking me?" he said, trying to distract Thanos from questioning the situation. "This is space magic and you're a purple giant. This is way outta my pay grade."

Thanos didn't look convinced. "You're a talented liar, Stark." And then the pieces of the puzzle seemed to snap into place for Thanos. "Liar," he repeated and he suddenly started looking around, as if he was questioning his surroundings.

That old familiar fear started to creep back in. Loki's hands started to shake.

Oh, this was bad.

Very bad.

He was going to be found. Thanos was going to learn this was all a trick and then…

The fear suddenly stopped and Loki had an epiphany.

What?

What could he possibly do to him that he hadn't already?

Torture him?

Sure, probably, yes.

But he had gotten through that before hadn't he? Pain, that sort of pain, was an old friend. Thanos couldn't hurt his friends. He and Thanos were millions of miles away from Earth and Thanos's army won't attack Earth without orders. They would be too busy looking for Thanos once they realized something was wrong. And death had lost it's terrifying grip eons ago.

So what could Thanos possibly do to me?

He had absolutely no leverage to use against him. And that fact made Loki feel unbreakable.

The fear melted away completely.

His hands stopped shaking and were steady.

Loki smirked at Thanos as he continued to look around waiting for the final shoe to drop. "What's the matter oh, powerful one? You seem a little, what's the word, paranoid."

"What have you done?" Thanos asked, his voice low.

"You're going to have to be more specific."

"You tricked me. I know you did! You're not even…" Thanos trailed off, not wanting to finish his thought. Like his thought was too unbelievable to be real. Loki smirked again.

Thanos knew.

He was just too shocked to say it.

Loki had no problem saying it. "Even what Thanos? Not even Stark? What about that couldn't you say? Was it because if you admitted it that it would mean you were tricked by," Loki let the illusion fall and no longer was he Tony, "cunning little old me?"

Thanos's expression was hilarious. It went from surprised to humiliated to disgusted to furious in a matter of seconds, but it was all there. All for Loki to see and the best part, he was the reason for those emotions. He had tricked the bloody mad Titan into sending his army away. He should feel humiliated.

When Thanos did nothing but glare at Loki with his death glare, Loki clapped his hands together and said in a sing-songy manner, "Surprise."

And because there was no reason to keep the con going anymore, and he really wanted to see Thanos flip out, he let all of the illusions fade away in flashes of green and red. Thanos started backwards as the green and red passed over him revealing that Thanos wasn't burnt any worse then what he had been before and, more importantly, he had no stones. And Thanos had a tiny spark of fear in his eye. And oh, did it make the mischief swirl up inside of Loki.

The flash of red went over their surroundings, washing away the appearance of Titan and replacing it with their true location: Jotunheim.

It seemed like the perfect place to go. Lower population, far away from Earth, and most importantly, Loki was in his element in the frigid, snowy wasteland that was his birth home.

Thanos tiny spark of fear only increased as the sunny, orange and brown rocks of Titan dissolved into the dark and icy Jotunheim. Loki held the Reality Stone up for Thanos to see, so he would know how he was able to trick him so well, and then with a flick of his wrist, the stone vanished in a flash of green.

Thanos pushed back almost all of his fear, but none of his anger. He screamed, "You will conjure the stones back right now!"

"No," Loki simply said.

"You will!" Thanos demanded, curling his hands into fists.

"Well, when you put it that way…go to hell."

Thanos's hands were shaking with rage. His voice was low, almost unhinged. "You think just because I do not have the stones that I cannot hurt you?"

Loki looked him right in the eye, feeling no fear as he did so. "Oh, I know you can. I just don't care. You, mighty Thanos, do not scare me anymore."

"Mock heroism is apparently your calling, Asgardian."

"As I said before, I'm not Asgardian." Loki was preparing himself to fight or run.

"How true, Jotun runt." A few days ago, a comment like that would have cut him deeper than any knife. It would have brought back all the old hurt, opened some of the old wounds. It would have brought back the feelings of being some unwanted thing, of not truly being Thor's brother, of how he was not worthy of his adopted family's love, not worthy of anyone's love. But now, Loki was unfazed.

Thanos was anything but unfazed. His obvious irritation grew till he reached his breaking point. Thanos suddenly broke off an icicle from a nearby boulder that was covered in them and hurled it at him. Loki dodged what was basically a dagger made out of ice and barely got his footing back when Thanos started charging at him. It quickly became a chase over the icy terrain, with Loki keeping as safe of a distance from the mad Titan as possible.

He wasn't sure how long they had been running, it didn't feel like it had been horribly long. Regardless, the chase was over. As Loki ran across some frozen slippery rocks, he felt a sharp pain stab him in the back of the right shoulder. The sudden pain caused him to lose his footing and he crashed to the ground. The frozen slippery rocks that he fell on did a great job of bruising and cutting him up but that was nothing compared to the pain in his shoulder. He barely pushed himself away from the ground, barely glanced back to see a large icicle sticking out of his back, barely had time to figure that Thanos had hurled another icicle at him when the mad Titan reached him.

Thanos grabbed him by the leg and threw him like he was a rag doll. Loki landed a few feet away and was thankful he landed in a snow drift and not on a patch of icy rocks. "Not so defiant now," Thanos snapped, as he marched up to him. He grabbed Loki by his arm and tore the icicle out of his shoulder. Warm blood ran from the wound.

Loki grimaced in pain but stopped himself from screaming out. "On the contrary," he huffed out through gritted teeth. "Mischief is just another word for defiant. And I am the God of Mischief."

Thanos growled in anger and stabbed him in the same spot with the icicle again. But he pushed it in further this time so that the sharp, blood soaked tip protruded from the front of his shoulder.

Loki did scream this time.

…

He lost track of time. That always used to happen on Thanos's ship.

Thanos wanted him to conjure up the Infinity Stones for him, which of course he refused to do and thus, the torturing started. The pain seemed like it would never stop but Loki kept reminding himself that it had once and it would again. One way or another. Fighting back was an option but not a smart one. He was weakened from using his magic and the Reality Stone. His right shoulder was severely injured and being mostly right-handed that did pose a problem.

Loki's eyes slipped shut for what felt like a minute, but then he woke with a start. Had he blacked out? Possibly, he had another head injury, because of course he did. He was lying flat on his back. His head and right shoulder hurt, both were bleeding. He waited for his blurred eyesight to focus before looking around at his surroundings. No longer was he in the wide open winter wonderland that was Jotunheim, but in some sort of enclosed fort or temple that was made out of ice and blue rocks. There were Jotun runes inscribed on the ceiling.

Interesting. But where's Thanos?

Loki could tell that the temperature was warmer than what had been outside. And then it occurred to him, he could handle the extreme cold of Jotunheim but Thanos would need to find shelter and make a fire, or risk hypothermia. Loki was quiet for a while and he heard the distinct crackle of a fire. He didn't know where Thanos was in this temple but he wasn't right here torturing him, so that was a blessing.

Because he needed to get in contact with the others.

He needed to tell his friends that Wanda could conjure up the Reality Stone. He had made it disappear with his magic and the only way to make it reappear was if someone used traditional magic. And he knew just how to get in contact with Earth's mightiest heroes: projection.

He didn't use projections all that often but they did come in handy. He could simply project an imagine of himself to wherever he wanted and then see through that imagine's eyes and speak through it. He closed his eyes and concentrated on one place: Wakanda.

When Loki opened his eyes it was like he was standing in one of the Wakandan corridors. He let out a disappointed sigh. It was nighttime. Everyone was more than likely asleep now. He was disappointed because he had this deep seeded hope that maybe he could see everyone again one last time. But it was probably for the best. He didn't have much time for long farewells anyways.

He quickly sent his projection through the halls, looking for someone, anyone. As he searched, he made sure his projection looked healthy and uninjured. Whoever he found would be in for a shock when they saw him but he didn't want to pile on the worry if they saw him, or his projection, looking severely injured.

He turned a corner and came to an immediate halt when he saw someone sleeping in a chair. It was Nebula.

He felt a spark of something in his chest. What the emotion was he couldn't quite figure out but it didn't matter. He had found someone and he was more than ecstatic that it was Nebula. He stepped closer, watching her sleep for a second. She appeared to be fine. No cuts or bruises left over from the Battle of St. Louis. Good, that was good.

"Nebula?" he said, trying to wake her. He'd grab her by the shoulder to gently shake her awake, but he wasn't really here to do that. "Nebula?" he said a bit louder.

Nebula suddenly started and her eyes snapped open. She looked up and saw him standing about a foot away. "Loki? This isn't a dream, is it?" she said slowly, repeating the words he had said to her when she had woken him up after arriving in Wakanda.

Loki shook his head. "No."

Nebula's beautiful black eyes widened in disbelief. "Then how are you here? How did you-?"

"Nebula," he quickly said, before she could get too excited. "Listen I'm…I'm not actually here."

She didn't seem to understand, but then it dawned on her. She stood up and hesitantly tried to place her metal hand on his shoulder. Her hand went through him. "A projection," she stated, not hiding her disappointment.

Loki was internally kicking himself. He should have thought of a better way to do this. "Sorry. I needed to talk to someone."

Nebula's expression suddenly changed and she snapped, "You're lucky you're not really here because if you were, I would have already punched your face in."

And star's help him, he couldn't help but chuckle a little at that. "Angry are we?"

Nebula glared at him. "That night we talked, you spent an hour complaining about and teasing your brother and your super heroic friends for making the sacrifice play and being selfless idiots. And what do you do? The exact same God damn thing!"

Loki let out a sigh. "Look, I get it. I'm a hypocrite. I know. Inconsistent, emotionally damaged, trickster god with self-esteem issues. That's me by the way, hello. But-"

"I cannot understand you."

"I don't understand myself sometimes."

"Stupid. Stupid, insensitive, bastard-"

"Well, now you're just being harsh."

"Why?" Nebula demanded. "Why would you let yourself get taken back into his clutches?"

"Like you have to ask. Because I wasn't going to just stand there and watch you die." Nebula's eyes suddenly softened. "Well, I-I mean to say that I couldn't watch any of you die. It hurt knowing that my friends were taken by that monster, but learning that you were one of the fifteen…I…I knew I had to ensure your safety."

"Loki…" Nebula said, raising her hand to place it on his shoulder but stopped when she remembered he was just a projection.

"Thor's capture broke me," Loki continued after a while. "I completely shut down. All of my hope was drained away. Barton talked me out of my depression and I promised myself that I would do whatever it took to save you all. An opportunity arose and…I acted on it. How are they?"

Nebula sighed and crossed her arms over her chest. "Rogers is alive and resting. Captain Carol Danvers arrived. Bit one-track minded and a show off in my opinion. You two would get along beautifully. Tony and Banner brought back Vision with your brother's help. Wanda has been catching him up on everything that's happened."

Vision's alive? Thank the stars.

"Vision…good. I'm happy for Wanda." Then he realized something. "'Tony'? Since when did you get on a first name bases with Stark?"

"Since a few hours ago. Why? Jealous I'm going to replace you as my best friend?"

"Of course not," he said far too quickly. "No. No." Loki shook his head, dismissing any feeling remotely similar to jealousy because now was not the time. "But…how are they?"

"They're all worried about you."

Loki felt a pang of guilt. "Thor?"

"Beside himself." Of course the oaf was. Of course they all were. It shouldn't surprise him but, what could he say? "Where are you?" Nebula suddenly asked.

And then Loki remembered why he was even here in the first place. "That's not important. What is important is what I came to tell you before I got sidetracked. I made the Reality Stone disappear. The only way it can be brought back now is if it is conjured up by another traditional magic user. You need to tell Wanda that she can conjure up the Reality Stone. Then you'll have all six stones."

"Great. Where are you?" Nebula said through gritted teeth.

Loki sighed, "Nebula, you will tell Wanda this, won't you?"

"Yes, now for God's sake, where are you?!"

Had the situation been different, had the stress and tension not been so high, he might have chuckled at this little outburst. But it wasn't funny now. He tore his eyes away from her intense gaze. "I can't-"

"No," Nebula sternly said, cutting him off before he could even begin. "You are telling me this instant so we can save you."

"No, I am not letting you hot headed fools come bargaining in, guns blazing and get yourselves killed!"

Nebula curled her hands into fists, her entire body shaking in rage. And for a brief second Loki was actually glad he wasn't really there, because if he was she would have already punched him in the face. "That is not your decision to make," Nebula murmured in her scary tone.

Loki huffed, "Well, I'm making it. End of story."

And that threw her over the edge. She shouted, "You are so infuriating!"

"Am I?"

"Yes!"

"I am only looking out for your best interests."

"Our best interests?!" Nebula screamed, a sort of hysteria creeping in. "Is it in our best interests to know that you're facing your almost certain death?!"

"I am not facing my "almost certain death". I am quite clever and sneaky, you know."

"Your illusions are good, Loki. Nearly flawless. But you're transparent. If you've made the Reality Stone disappear then you are not using it to trick Thanos anymore, which means he knows you're not Stark. And you can hide the truth behind a mask of confidence, but I know that you know your time is limited."

"Am I really that transparent?"

Nebula slowly shook her head. "No. I just know you."

She really did, didn't she? It was infuriating and fascinating and it left him with this nameless emotion, this feeling that he only ever felt when it came to Nebula. He took a deep breath and tried very poorly not to focus on the mess of emotions that he was suddenly overcome with. "Nebula, get the stones together, get the Gauntlet, and then worry about me. Please? I know the Avengers do not trade lives but, one life should not stand in the way of countless other lives being saved… Please?"

Nebula shut her eyes and huffed, "Okay." He hated that he couldn't comfort her, that he was forced to just stand here and watch her wide at her watery eyes. She let out a deep breath, fighting off the tears as she did so. "Your peaceful memory you shared with me all that time ago has been very useful the past few hours."

"Oh?"

"Yeah… You think you have to go this alone but you don't have to."

No. He didn't have to. But he needed to protect her, protect Thor, protect his group of obnoxious friends. "I…I have to vanish."

"No, not yet," she said, sounding a little desperate.

"I don't want to."

"Loki, I-"

"You really will miss me, won't you?" Loki mused with a slight smile. He never properly got to say goodbye to her last time he left. He never got to say goodbye to his brother or his friends. But at least he could say goodbye to one of his friends this time. His best and first friend. "Goodbye Nebula."

His projection vanished. And he was no longer looking at the distraught blue woman, but the Jotun temple.

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Author's Note Again: Jotunheim!

That's right! We're in Jotunheim! Oh, boy am I gonna have some fun with this!

Fun Fact: The original ending of Thor: Ragnorok had Loki going off on his own with the Tesseract and he ended up in Jotunheim. So, when Thanos went to get the Tesseract, he just confronted Loki all by his lonesome on Jotunheim! I am not making this up. There are unused pieces of concept art that show the alternate beginning of Infinity War! Seriously, type Infinity War Loki in Jotunheim into whatever search engine you use and prepare to be amazed.

Anyways…Vision's alive and well, Captain Marvel is Captain Marvel, Scott's up to something, the Starjammers keeps coming up, Steve's awake, Thanos knows he's been duped, and Loki's trying to play the part of the selfless hero.

The plot thickens some more!

Also, I wanted to say a few things about the two Captains:

1. I feel that I am one of the few people who actually likes the Captain Marvel movie. It's not great art or even a great Marvel movie but there is so much to like about it. I also don't dislike Brie Larson like a mass majority of people do. Has she said some questionable things? Sure. But I don't know a famous person who hasn't. I was also disappointed that Carol didn't really do anything in Endgame and I think the reason why was because the Russos didn't know how to flesh out this character, as well as all the other plot things they wanted to do. I feel that the complaint that Carol is OP can be valid but an over-powered character can be interesting as long as they have personality flaws. And I think Carol has a great personality flaw: she's a bit too cocky with her powers/she relies on them too much. I get that the end of CM was to prove the point that Carol doesn't have to prove herself to Jude Law's character (what's that guy's name?) and etc. But this nonchalant attitude of "I don't have to prove myself to you, I know I'm powerful, watch me demonstrate" can lead to a sort of arrogance that can be interesting to play with.

At least that's how I'm deciding to write the character.

2. I think I said before that I enjoyed Endgame. I still do, but after all the hype died down and I re-watched it, not as a Marvel fan but as a film fan, I have some issues with it. And one of those issues was Steve Rogers' arch. There are like a million YouTube film essays explaining that Steve's decision to go back to the 1940s and be with Peggy is so obvious and that it was perfectly aligned with his character. I just…I don't agree with that. I don't know, maybe I took Steve's line in Age of Ultron seriously. ("The man who wanted all that went into the ice seventy-five years ago. And I think someone else came out.") It's doesn't make sense to me why a man who lost his friends and family would then give up his new friends and family. And of course, he wasn't there for Bucky till the end of the line and considering how much I love CA:TWS that's reason enough for me to be a little dissatisfied with Steve's conclusion. Why is any of this important? Well, I wrote the scene with Steve and Quill so I could have a moment to explain my version of Steve's thought process. To explain that in this universe because there is no time-travel, he's not going to live a miserable existence. He's content with his life and he's not going to create a parallel universe just so he can have his dance with Peggy Carter.

Besides, as a fan of the Agent Carter show, I really love Peggy's new love interest. Almost more than Steve. Almost. I think Marvel just wants to wipe Agent Carter from canon which is a shame because it was really good.

(Side note: Quill being a Captain America fanboy is just fun. Besides, the actress who plays Quill's mom, plays an autograph seeker in CA: The First Avenger and James Gunn once said that the autograph seeker was actually Quill's grandma so…)

Anyways, I'll get off my soapbox now. Hope you all stay safe and sound during this time of crisis. And when in doubt, watch Marvel movies and read fanfiction! Have a good rest of your day.